The DocumentThe Document is a new kind of mash-up between documentaries and radio. It goes beyond clips and interviews, mining great stories from the raw footage of documentaries present, past and in-progress. A new episode is available every other Wednesday on iTunes and wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

To the PointA weekly reality-check on the issues Americans care about most. Host Warren Olney draws on his decades of experience to explore the people and issues shaping – and disrupting - our world. How did everything change so fast? Where are we headed? The conversations are informal, edgy and always informative. If Warren's asking, you want to know the answer.

There Goes the NeighborhoodLos Angeles is having an identity crisis. City officials tout new development and shiny commuter trains, while longtime residents are doing all they can to hang on to home. This eight-part series is supported by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Urban Light, a grove of ornate, historic lampposts at the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, has become a much-loved landmark, and a gentle evocation of the Southland’s past. Now the same artist, Chris Burden, has created a new interpretation of Los Angeles, that’s the opposite of a stroll down a Victorian street. Burden, known for his performance and installation work, has created a kinetic sculpture named Metropolis II, a room-size imaginary city, with multi-level freeways and rail lines looping around cheerful skyscrapers. It’s made of Plexiglas, glass and stone tile and children’s building materials: Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and Haba wooden blocks. It's also a feat of engineering, involving years of experimentation by a team of artists and lead engineer Zack Cook.

The result is a delight, an artwork that’s instantly accessible, and appeals to the kid in all of us. But it’s meant to do more that. Burden says the sculpture is meant to evoke an LA of the future, where self-driving cars zip along at 200 miles per hour and one could drive from Pasadena to Santa Monica in a handful of minutes. Thomas Crow, professor of modern art at New York University, comments on this clattering, whirring vision of the future, especially in comparison to the peaceful Urban Light. And LACMA's director Michael Govan speaks about why Burden's interpretation of the city was the perfect addition to LACMA's collection. But could Burden's vision really be a glimpse into LA's future? Frances asks Dan Neil, auto critic for the Wall Street Journal, for his take on whether or not Metropolis II could eventually be a reality.

A video of the making of Metropolis II by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman

The sculpture is so complex an operator must stand at the center while it's running to make sure nothing goes awry. Photo by Alissa Walker

Chris Burden points out some structural features at one corner of the sculpture. Photo by Alissa Walker

We're midway through the art world marathon that is Pacific Standard Time, with several shows closing and new ones about to open. One of those new shows is called Breaking Ground: Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles 1945-1980and it opens this week at the Chinese American Museum. As with most of the PST shows, it offers up a new look at a time that in some ways feels like yesterday and in other ways so long ago. During this period China was not the building mecca it is now, and Asian designers were not a significant part of the mix at local design schools and offices, but rather were a minority, and treated as such. Breaking Ground shows off the postwar work of four Chinese-American architects, Eugene Choy, Gilbert Leong, Helen Liu Fong and Gin Wong. Frances visits the show with the show's curator, Steve Wong, and architect Barton Choy, Eugene Choy's son.

On January 31 Frances will be hosting a conversation called "Temporary Insanity!" at LACMA with Jenna Didier, co-founder of design laboratory Materials and Applications. The conversation will focus on designers who are producing a new kind of installation work that’s blurring the boundaries between art, architecture and installation. Recently at Materials and Applications and also at the architecture school SCI-Arc, young architects have created temporary structures, that bring to life shapes and forms imagined on the computer. They are often made by hand in fabric or new plastics and metals and function as purely sensual experiences, filtering the light or shape in an interesting way. One of the prominent designers in this realm is Benjamin Ball, who with Gaston Nogues, heads the firm Ball-Nogues. He speaks with Frances about why this type of work has become popular for young designers.

Currently on show at Materials & Applications is Bloom, a work by Doris Sung, Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter and Matthew Melnyk: a 20 foot tall shiny metal 'flower' whose skin of petals reacts to the heat of the sun. Photo by Scott Mayoral

In the parking lot of SCI-Arc, in downtown LA, Oyler Wu's Netscape uses 45,000 feet of linear rope to knit a canopy which was used for graduation ceremonies at the school. Photo courtesy Oyler Wu